21st Century Conductor

Terra Incognita

 

Music by Gareth Farr

 

Text edited and written by Paul Horan

 

   

1. "This world was never ours"

(Choir)

   

    

2.   “Come my Friends” (soloist)

The last section of Ulysees by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

                                                                                       

Come my friends

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows;

for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset,

and the baths

Of all the western stars,

until I die.

                                                                            

Tho' much is taken, much abides;

and tho'

We are not now that strength

which in the old days

Moved earth and heaven;

that which we are, we are;

One equal-temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate,

but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find,

and not to yield.

                                                                                                                                                                   

3. In Discovery's Slang (choir)

by Paul Horan

                                                                                           

In discovery's slang, I am last

So of course you will claim me

As if I am a god that forgot you

But no, I never knew you.

                                                                         

In discovery's songs, I will rise

But till you can make the word

That will run out to the horizon

None will be heard 'bove the wind.

                                                                                                                  

4.  "Night light" (soloist)

Scott, 1905

                                                                   

... As the red glow slowly travels around    

and is lost behind the western hills, 

our white world is left alone

with the moon and the stars.

                                                                       

The cold, white light falls

on the colder, whiter snow.

                                                                       

The eye travels on and on

Over the gleaming plain

till it meets with the white misty horizon.

and above and beyond,

the soft, silvery outlines of the mountains.

                                                                    

Did one not know them of old,

it would sometimes be difficult

to think them real,

so deep a spell of enchantment

seems to rest on the scene.

                                                                             

And indeed it is not a  spell

that rests o a man alone,

for it is on such night

that the dogs lift up their voices

and ´join in a chant

which disturbs even the most restful sleepers.

                                                           

                                                                               

5. From "The Quiet Land" by Frank Debenham

(soloist and choir)

                                                                                 

Men are not old here

Only the rocks are old,

and the sheathing ice:

Only the restless sea,

chafing trhe frozen land,

Ever moving,

matched by the ceaselessly-circling sun.

                                                                                       

Wild birds go wandering

over the face of the snow;

Bright, swift, harsh-crying,

strange adnd heedless.

Transient in time over the mountains,

As we are transient,

strangers in an old land.

                                                                         

Choir enters: (This earth was never ours)

                                                                       

Man is not old here

Creeping upon the white,

brilliant brow of the world.

Less than the birds,

impeded and muffled by the snow,

Unheeded by the sun,

rejected by the sea,

And stunned and stunted by the silence.

                                                                            

And above all,

the dream is here.

The dream of this that is above all else.

Braveness and light and space,

and the everlasting morning.

For this time there will be no awakening,

and no journey back.

Serenity is made whole and lucid;

This time the dream will never end.

                          

                                                                                                                   

6. "Eternal Silence" (soloist)

from Scott's impressions on the march

                                                                     

The eternal silence

of the great white desert

Cloudy columns of snow

drift advancing from the south,

pale yellow wraiths,

heralding the coming storm,

blotting out one by one

the sharp cut lines of the land.

                                               

                                                                                   

7. "Great God" (soloist with choir)

Scott journal

                                                      

Great God!

this is an awful place

and terrible enough

for us to have laboured to it

without the reward 

 of priority.

                               

                                                                 

8. "Goodbye Larsen B"

by Paul Horan

                                                             

A shift

A maw

A gulch of icy water

So goodbye Larsen B

Farewwell and good luck.

                                                        

Were you a ship

A fleet

A great, white fleet

Striking otu for the North

Show our continent's might.

                                                      

 Were you a gift

A Prize

A glit'ring prize

Sacrificed to secure

The Antarctic silence.

                                               

But you are just

A baulk

A shapeless arbitary baulk

Bobbing: heaving and snapped

Green-silver in remaining light.

                                                       

 Goodbye Larsen B

Farewell and good luck

Were still an edge

The lip

Like the unmoving lip

An eternal border

Between the deep and the vast.

                                                

But you are just

A scrap

The palin testament

To our new talent

The once unthinkable

                                                  

Here

Where

It seems

to fail

I step backwards again

As the ice softens:

Terrac incognita

A sliding hill of snow

                                                   

Goodbye Larsen B

Farewell

Now go.

                                                                                                     

                                                                                                             

For enquiries about Terra Incognita:

                                                                          

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